Use of a citrus by-product in broilers diets

The European Union is about to ban antibiotics as growth promoters in animal feeds. Organic products have been recently revalued and the animal science research showed a great interest in the study of alternative natural nutraceutical products in animal feeding. Flavonoids are plant pigments able to inhibit or kill many bacterial strains, to destroy some pathogenic protozoa and to scavenge free radicals

Mixtures of mono-, di- and tri-glycerides as energy supplements to broilers' diets

Mixtures of mono-, di- and tri-glycerides from olive oil (MDT) were added to: palm oil (PO), olive oil (OO), soybean oil (SO), free fatty acids from palm oil (PFA), free fatty acids from olive oil (OFA). The compound mixtures were used as energy supplements in the diets of broiler chickens in comparison with plain SO and plain animal fat (AF). Two hundred and ten birds were randomly allotted to 7 dietary treatments with the diverse oil sources: 6 birds per cage, 5 cages per treatment. The effects of the treatments on growth rates, feed/gain ratios and acidic composition of abdominal fat of hybrid Ross 308 female chickens were studied. The animals were slaughtered at the end of the trial, at day 35. The breast meat quality was then evaluated by a panel of 15 trained members and analysed for shelf life duration. The AF treat- ment gave the highest weight gain, but only in the first week. MDT + OO (50/50) resulted the best combination, with slight, non significant, better performances and a decidedly better quality in terms of acidic composition of abdominal fat, taste and juiciness of breast meat and shelf life

Mixture of mono- di- and tri-glycerides as energy supplements to broilers diets.

Mixtures of mono-, di- and tri-glycerides from olive oil (MDT) were added to: palm oil (PO), olive oil (OO), soybean oil (SO), free fatty acids from palm oil (PFA), free fatty acids from olive oil (OFA). The compound mixtures were used as energy supplements in the diets of broiler chickens in comparison with plain SO and plain animal fat (AF). Two hundred and ten birds were randomly allotted to 7 dietary treatments with the diverse oil sources: 6 birds per cage, 5 cages per treatment. The effects of the treatments on growth rates, feed/gain ratios and acidic composition of abdominal fat of hybrid Ross 308 female chickens were studied. The animals were slaughtered at the end of the trial, at day 35. The breast meat quality was then evaluated by a panel of 15 trained members and analysed for shelf life duration. The AF treatment gave the highest weight gain, but only in the first week. MDT + OO (50/50) resulted the best combination, with slight, non significant, better performances and a decidedly better quality in terms of acidic composition of abdominal fat, taste and juiciness of breast meat and shelf lif

Butyric acid glycerides in the diet of broiler chickens: effect of gut histology and carcass composition

Aim of the study was to verify the effects of butyric acid glycerides, as a supplemental ingredient in the diet, on live performance of broiler chickens and on the morphology of their small intestine, since short chain fatty acids are known as selective protection factors against intestinal microbial parasites, potent growth promoters of the gut wall tissues, also in terms of immune modulation response. An experiment was carried out on 150 Ross 308 female chickens, allotted to 5 treatments, over a 35 days period: the control, with soybean oil as the energy supplement, and 4 treatments with increasing amounts (0.2, 0.35, 0.5, 1% mixed feed) of a mixture of butyric acid glycerides (mono-, di- and tri-glycerides). Treated animals showed a higher live weight at slaughtering (P<0.05) with a better feed conversion rate. The carcase characteristics were not influenced, but the small intestine wall resulted slightly modified with shorter villi, longer microvilli (P<0.01) and larger crypts depth in jejunum (P<0.01), only with lowest concentration of the supplement (0.2%

Butyric acid glycerides in the diet of broiler chickens: effects on gut histology and carcass composition

Aim of the study was to verify the effects of butyric acid glycerides, as a supplemental ingredient in the diet, on live performance of broiler chickens and on the morphology of their small intestine, since short chain fatty acids are known as selective protection factors against intestinal microbial parasites, potent growth promoters of the gut wall tissues, also in terms of immune modulation response. An experiment was carried out on 150 Ross 308 female chickens, allotted to 5 treatments, over a 35 d ays period: the control, with soybean oil as the energy supplement, and 4 treatments with increasing amounts (0.2, 0.35, 0.5, 1% mixed feed) of a mixture of butyric acid glycerides (mono-, di- and tri- glycerides). Treated animals showed a higher live weight at slaughtering (P<0.05) with a better feed conversion rate. The carcase characteristics were not influenced, but the small intestine wall resulted slightly modified with shorter villi, longer microvilli (P<0.01) and larger crypts depth in jejunum (P<0.01), only with lowest concentration of the supplement (0.2%). It is concluded that butyric acid glycerides are an efficient supplement to broilers' diets, deserving particular attention as a possible alternative to antimicrobial drugs, which have been banned in Europe

Effects of attention and perceptual uncertainty on cerebellar activity during visual motion perception

Recent clinical and neuroimaging studies have revealed that the human cerebellum plays a role in visual motion perception, but the nature of its contribution to this function is not understood. Some reports suggest that the cerebellum might facilitate motion perception by aiding attentive tracking of visual objects. Others have identified a particular role for the cerebellum in discriminating motion signals in perceptually uncertain conditions. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine the degree to which cerebellar involvement in visual motion perception can be explained by a role in sustained attentive tracking of moving stimuli in contrast to a role in visual motion discrimination. While holding the visual displays constant, we manipulated attention by having participants attend covertly to a field of random-dot motion or a colored spot at fixation. Perceptual uncertainty was manipulated by varying the percentage of signal dots contained within the random-dot arrays. We found that attention to motion under high perceptual uncertainty was associated with strong activity in left cerebellar lobules VI and VII. By contrast, attending to motion under low perceptual uncertainty did not cause differential activation in the cerebellum. We found no evidence to support the suggestion that the cerebellum is involved in simple attentive tracking of salient moving objects. Instead, our results indicate that specific subregions of the cerebellum are involved in facilitating the detection and discrimination of task-relevant moving objects under conditions of high perceptual uncertainty. We conclude that the cerebellum aids motion perception under conditions of high perceptual demand

Auditory Resting-State Network Connectivity in Tinnitus: A Functional MRI Study

The underlying functional neuroanatomy of tinnitus remains poorly understood. Few studies have focused on functional cerebral connectivity changes in tinnitus patients. The aim of this study was to test if functional MRI “resting-state” connectivity patterns in auditory network differ between tinnitus patients and normal controls. Thirteen chronic tinnitus subjects and fifteen age-matched healthy controls were studied on a 3 tesla MRI. Connectivity was investigated using independent component analysis and an automated component selection approach taking into account the spatial and temporal properties of each component. Connectivity in extra-auditory regions such as brainstem, basal ganglia/NAc, cerebellum, parahippocampal, right prefrontal, parietal, and sensorimotor areas was found to be increased in tinnitus subjects. The right primary auditory cortex, left prefrontal, left fusiform gyrus, and bilateral occipital regions showed a decreased connectivity in tinnitus. These results show that there is a modification of cortical and subcortical functional connectivity in tinnitus encompassing attentional, mnemonic, and emotional networks. Our data corroborate the hypothesized implication of non-auditory regions in tinnitus physiopathology and suggest that various regions of the brain seem involved in the persistent awareness of the phenomenon as well as in the development of the associated distress leading to disabling chronic tinnitus

Cortical Plasticity Induced by Short-Term Multimodal Musical Rhythm Training

Performing music is a multimodal experience involving the visual, auditory, and somatosensory modalities as well as the motor system. Therefore, musical training is an excellent model to study multimodal brain plasticity. Indeed, we have previously shown that short-term piano practice increase the magnetoencephalographic (MEG) response to melodic material in novice players. Here we investigate the impact of piano training using a rhythmic-focused exercise on responses to rhythmic musical material. Musical training with non musicians was conducted over a period of two weeks. One group (sensorimotor-auditory, SA) learned to play a piano sequence with a distinct musical rhythm, another group (auditory, A) listened to, and evaluated the rhythmic accuracy of the performances of the SA-group. Training-induced cortical plasticity was evaluated using MEG, comparing the mismatch negativity (MMN) in response to occasional rhythmic deviants in a repeating rhythm pattern before and after training. The SA-group showed a significantly greater enlargement of MMN and P2 to deviants after training compared to the A- group. The training-induced increase of the rhythm MMN was bilaterally expressed in contrast to our previous finding where the MMN for deviants in the pitch domain showed a larger right than left increase. The results indicate that when auditory experience is strictly controlled during training, involvement of the sensorimotor system and perhaps increased attentional recources that are needed in producing rhythms lead to more robust plastic changes in the auditory cortex compared to when rhythms are simply attended to in the auditory domain in the absence of motor production